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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651682">Paisley?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay'>carloabay</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>At Her Own Peril [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christmas, Christmas Presents, Gen, James Potter is an Idiot, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), the infamous paisley curtains incident</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:34:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,703</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651682</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s that time of the year again, and James really doesn’t go clothes shopping very often. Obviously.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lily Evans Potter &amp; Severus Snape, Sirius Black &amp; James Potter, Sirius Black &amp; Remus Lupin &amp; Peter Pettigrew &amp; James Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>At Her Own Peril [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Paisley?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/li0nheart/gifts">li0nheart</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>“I would kill for a one-shot of the paisley curtains faux pas.“ — li0nheart, AO3, circa February 2021</p><p>Happy almost-end-of-lockdown, li0nheart!!! &lt;3 no need to commit any felonies :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was nearing the end of term at Hogwarts, and the air was thick with Christmas cheer. There was frost on the ground, crisp underfoot, and gentle snow that promised to turn into thick blizzards soon enough. </p><p>Hagrid was kept busy, lugging gigantic fir trees from the Forest uphill to the castle, collecting mistletoe and evergreen branches and fetching a number of massive decorations boxes from storage. They could see him struggling cheerfully around the grounds at all hours, wrapped in his massive moleskin coat.</p><p>Filch, though. Filch was another matter when it came to winter. He would patrol the corridors with vicious enthusiasm, broom held high, hobbling after students with mutters of, “filthy brats!” and “expect me to mop up everywhere they step? <em>Ha</em>!” He succeeded in reducing a pair of second year girls to tears when he set upon them, broom waving menacingly, screeching about mud.</p><p>James and Sirius like to dart around behind him, dropping balls of soil and taking cover in suits of armour when Filch turned around.</p><p>“It seems a bit unfair,” Peter said sympathetically, after what had to perhaps be the fiftieth time they’d done it.</p><p>“You talk too much, Pete,” James said, sniggering from behind a pillar as Filch burst into furious rants, finding yet another pile of soggy earth in the corridors. “Serves him right for making me shovel ‘til I got frostbite last January.”</p><p>Glittering decorations climbed over the insides of the cavernous Great Hall and wound themselves down the corridors and into the classrooms, seemingly overnight. Even the portraits and suits of armour were in good cheer, and Peeves, as usual, was enjoying himself far too much by seizing baubles off their strings and lobbing them hard into crowds of students walking in the corridors between lessons.</p><p>“What do you want for Christmas, Sirius?” James asked lazily in Transfiguration on a slow Monday morning, his chin in his palm. No one was really in the mood to work, but that was nothing new for James Potter.</p><p>“Dunno,” Sirius said, staring out of the window in a glazed sort of way. Snow had started to fall, thick and fast. “How about a Hippogriff?” James sniggered.</p><p>“Concentrate, please, Mr Potter,” Professor McGonagall rapped from the front of the classroom, looking disgruntled that neither of the boys seemed particularly impressed by her transformation from woman to cat. “I suppose your conversation is infinitely more interesting than the hope that you will pass your exams this year?” She set a steely gaze on Sirius, who managed his meekest-looking expression.</p><p>“No, Purrfessor,” he said, earnestly, and a ripple of amusement shot through the class. McGonagall silenced them all with one gaze, and Sirius tipped back on his chair with an arrogant little grin on his face. Next to him, Tilly Bell hid a laugh in the crook of her elbow, and Sirius’s grin widened. </p><p>Lessons ended at ten-thirty two days later, and with sighs of pleasure, Sirius, James, Remus and Peter sank into the squashy armchairs grouped around the fire in the Gryffindor common room.</p><p>“Alright, Evans?” Sirius yelled, in an exaggerated approximation of James’s voice, as Lily Evans and her dorm mates walked past on their way to the stairs. Lily ignored them regally. Io Brewsam punched James in the shoulder as she passed, and danced out of reach when he snatched at her, then fled towards the stairs, tugging on Remus’s hair on the way.</p><p>“Why’d you have to do that?” James grumbled, tugging on his collar and craning hopefully after Lily.</p><p>“Oh, come on, Potter,” Sirius said. “You’re so weird around her. Anyone would think you’re in love with her.” Peter laughed, almost nervously, and James threw him a dirty look. They relaxed into a comfortable sort of silence, James glaring at the fire. Remus pulled a book from nowhere, flicked through a couple of pages, and began to read.</p><p>“Don’t suppose Snivelly’s staying for Christmas, do you?” James asked after a second, now staring hopefully into the fire. Sirius raised his eyebrows.</p><p>“Only one way to find out,” he said.</p><p>To their dismay, however, they found Severus Snape an hour later, lurking in the library beside Lily, who was reading an anecdote from <em>Adventures with Hoffith Hangroy</em> aloud in a whisper, both of them grinning widely.</p><p>The four boys crept into the stacks, under Madame Pince’s baleful eye. Remus peeled off towards another student, sitting alone in an alcove, and Peter tiptoed along, practically under James’s arm.</p><p>“We can’t get him from here,” James hissed, sounding disappointed, as they peered around the Magical History section. They watched Lily and Snape for a second.</p><p>“She’ll get lice if she gets any closer,” Sirius whispered spitefully. “Here, how about the Furnunculus curse, Pete, keep a quick look-out, would you?” Peter ducked around the stack again furtively, and Sirius raised his wand, took careful aim between Snape’s shoulder-blades.</p><p>Two things happened at once. Lily looked up, and her eyes blazed as hot as her hair. She opened her mouth to snarl, maybe, but before she could, Narcissa Black materialised from along the bookcases, and stepped right in front of Sirius’s wand. Sirius blinked. </p><p>“Hullo, Cissy!” he said pleasantly, switching on the charm instantly, a quick grin, a flick of his hair. Narcissa was not fooled by, nor taken with him, and she simply glared down her nose. Sirius deflated. “Well,” he said, with an air of do-be-reasonable, “you can’t exactly give me detention, can you?” </p><p>“Where are your little friends?” Narcissa asked icily, and Sirius looked over his shoulder to find an empty space where James and Peter had been standing, seconds before. He sagged.</p><p>†††††††††††††††††††††</p><p>By the time Narcissa had finished giving Sirius a piece of her mind (with Pince looking on beadily), Lily and Snape were long gone, and Sirius was thoroughly wilted. He dragged himself trough the portrait hole of Gryffindor tower, and threw himself te length of the long sofa, one ankle hanging crookedly over the back.</p><p>“And the hero returns,” James said, slightly muffled by Sirius’s stomach.</p><p>“Cowards,” Sirius grunted. James snorted.</p><p>“What did that cow do to you?” he asked. “You look thoroughly demoralised.”</p><p>“Thoroughly demoralised, am I?” Sirius parroted, in an odd parody of James’s voice, his face squished unattractively against the cushions. “There’s nothing for it. We’re going to have to put Bulbadox Powder in her shoes.”</p><p>“I can get behind that,” James said. Peter, curled like a cat in the other armchair, sniffed.</p><p>“Oh, don’t go all wet again, Pete,” Sirius snapped. “I told you to keep a lookout!”</p><p>“Leave him alone,” said James. “I’m out of Bulbadox powder. We’ll have to go down to Zonko’s.”</p><p>“Fantastic,” Sirius muttered. “You can buy me a Christmas present while you’re at it.”</p><p>“I don’t think this is a very good id—“</p><p>“Shut it, Pettigrew!” Sirius snarled, and Peter lapsed into silence.</p><p>†††††††††††††††††††††</p><p>The walk down to Hogsmeade was utterly miserable: for one thing, Sirius was in a foul mood, and for another, the clouds were spitting snow and wind and needles of ice now. They could barely see three feet ahead of them.</p><p>James was huddled inside a thick scarf, Remus was bundled up in what looked like about eight jumpers, and Peter had his cloak drawn all the way up to his ears. Sirius, however, with a scowl that could match McGonagall’s, was staring straight into the screaming wind, the snow and sleet stripping his face raw. </p><p>James appeared to be thinking.</p><p>“D’you think,” he roared, over the sound of the wind, “that Evans <em>likes</em> Snape?” No one answered for a second.</p><p>Then, “What do you care?” Sirius snapped back, and James fell silent.</p><p>They tumbled into the crowded Three Broomsticks, raw-cheeked and dripping, and thawed themselves out by the door for a second. Madame Rosmerta looked up from the bar, saw them, and gave a heavy sigh.</p><p>“C’mon,” Sirius muttered, leading them to a table by the fire, winding through the chattering crowd.</p><p>“I’ll get us some Butterbeers,” Remus said, moving off, and the three boys sat themselves down. Peter scuffed the floor with his toes. Sirius glared into the fire. James put his chin in his hand, staring at the huge Christmas tree that was stuffed into a corner, draped with silvery decorations. Eventually, Remus came back with fou Butterbeers, and Sirius seemed to cheer up a little.</p><p>They drank in companionable silence. Over at the bar, Madame Rosmerta shot them suspicious looks every now and again. When Sirius’s bottle was empty, he put it down on the table with a loud <em>clunk</em>, startling James out of a distant trance.</p><p>“We should get that Bulbadox powder,” Sirius said, looking marginally more cheerful. He stared out of the window, where the wind was pounding furiously on the glass, snow piling up on the sill outside. Peter shivered involuntarily.</p><p>“And I need to get something from the bookshop,” Remus added. When the others looked at him curiously, he leant in and whispered, “<em>for the map. Library doesn’t stock anything on Locator spells.</em>” </p><p>“I’ll go with Remus,” Peter said instantly, eyeing Sirius nervously.</p><p>“I’ve still got to find your present, Sirius,” James said, sounding harried. “I’ll go on my own.”</p><p>“Fantastic,” Sirius said, dully.</p><p>“Oh, don’t go in a snit again,” Remus cut in, uncharacteristically sharp.</p><p>“I’m not in a snit,” Sirius grumbled. Remus eyed him beadily. “I’m not!”</p><p>“Just drop the mood by the time we’ve all met up again,” James replied tartly, sounding a little like Professor McGonagall. “Back here?” The others agreed, and they swept their damp cloaks back on, and left the pub.</p><p>†††††††††††††††††††††</p><p>Once they were done shopping, they struggled back up to the castle through thigh-high snow, the wind at their backs this time, slipping icy fingers down their necks.</p><p>James had stuffed his present under his robes, and looked extraordinarily like he had a very large, misshapen stomach. He kept nervously shifting it around.</p><p>“I don’t know if you’ll like it—“ he called to Sirius, over the wind, for the seventh time.</p><p>“Oh, shut up, would you?” Sirius bellowed back, and James lapsed into hurt silence. Remus snorted, his face half buried in his thick collar.</p><p>†††††††††††††††††††††</p><p>They spent the rest of the holidays lazing in the common room, playing innumerable rounds of wizard’s chess with Sirius’s ancient set: the pieces hated them all, especially Peter, but somehow he managed to win every game. </p><p>One afternoon, they took brooms out to the Quidditch pitch, gathered huge armfuls of snowballs, and then zoomed gleefully onto the lawns where the sixth and seventh years were building snowmen, and bombarded them. They were chased over the lake, which was thick with ice, where Peter slipped off his broom and had to be rescued by James before the ice cracked.</p><p>The next day, they trekked down to Hagrid’s in a search for sympathy after the same sixth and seventh years had shovelled ice down the backs of their necks at breakfast, in retaliation.</p><p>Christmas Day drew nearer and nearer, and James grew so jumpy about his present for Sirius that Remus ended up Spellotaping his mouth shut for a whole day.</p><p>But finally, Christmas Day dawned with another hefty coat of snow laid all over Hogwarts, muffling the morning, and the sun hid moodily behind a thick bank of clouds, white and bright.</p><p>Sirius woke to Peter bouncing on his stomach, and he woke with a shout.</p><p>“<em>Ouch</em>, Pete!” But Peter was not listening.</p><p>“It’s Christmas Day!” He squealed, leaping off Sirius and onto Remus, who groaned and yanked the covers over his head, leaving his skinny ankles bare. Peter tickled his feet and leapt away before Remus could try and throttle him.</p><p>Eventually, when they had all been dragged out of bed, they started on their piles of presents: Sirius, bedraggled and bleary, Remus, wrapped in about eight blankets, James, yawning widely and grinning nervously, and Peter, hyper and bouncy.</p><p>“Cool!” Sirius said, eyes bright, as he held up a leather jacket from Remus. “Thanks!”</p><p>“The arms might be a bit long—umf!” Remus said, as Sirius jumped on him for a hug. (He didn’t take the jacket off all day.)</p><p>“Thanks, James!” Peter said, holding a sleek new Self-Inking quill up to the light. “I do have a pen, though...” but James wasn’t listening. He was staring very hard at Sirius, who had finally started to unwrap the lumpy parcel that James had bought down in Hogsmeade. Remus looked around, too, as Sirius ripped off the wrapping paper, and out fell—</p><p>—something colourful, blue and pink and red and—</p><p>“...paisley?” Remus asked, squinting at the garment. James had hidden his face behind his fingers, and was peeking out from behind them.</p><p>“Potter,” Sirius started, carefully, his voice constricted slightly, “did you buy me <em>curtains</em>?” James emerged from behind his hands.</p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Paisley curtains,” Remus said slowly. Sirius’s face was turning red, his cheeks swelling, and the corners of Remus’s mouth were twitching up, his jaw trembling. Peter was holding his nose, pink in the face.</p><p>The three of them locked gazes, and burst into laughter.</p><p>“M-multicoloured paisley curtains!” Sirius hooted, gasping, bending over at the waist.</p><p>“J-James, you...idiot,” wheezed Remus. Peter giggled helplessly, and Sirius leapt onto a chair, grabbed the garment (which most certainly was curtains), and flung it around his waist, prancing back and forth on each foot like he was wearing an extremely long skirt. Peter screeched with laughter, prostrate on the floor, and Remus sank slowly onto his bed, shaking, silent tears streaming Dow his face. </p><p>In the midst of it all, James sat at the foot of his bed, mouth slightly open.</p><p>“<em>Curtains</em>,” Remus gasped.</p><p>The door swung open, and in burst Lily Evans, a very cross look on her face which vanished almost immediately. James hid behind his new Quidditch robes, hanging from the end of his bed. Sirius carried on dancing, red in the face.</p><p>“What on earth...”</p><p>“Paisley curtains,” Peter choked.</p><p>“I— you’re being very loud, you know,” Lily said weakly. “Black, <em>what</em> are you doing? Did someone Confund him?”</p><p>“I thought they were trousers!” James bellowed, over the wheezes of the other three boys. A smile started to creep over Lily’s face, and the others hooted even louder.</p><p>“He thought they were trousers!” Remus hollered, rolling around on the bed. “James, James, maybe you should have bought him a cushion cover to match, he could wear it as a hat!” </p><p>“A hat!” Peter shrieked, and Sirius wheezed, the chair tipped and he crashed to the floor. Lily backed out of the room, looking half-alarmed, half amused, and James buried his head in his arms.</p><p>†††††††††††††††††††††</p><p>Sirius proudly wore the brightly coloured paisley curtains to breakfast, over his leather jacket and pyjamas like a cloak. There was a long single table set out in the middle of the hall instead of the four House tables, and he strode resplendently to the middle of it, looking for all the world like he’d just stumbled blindly through an interior decoration shop. Remus and Peter, still giggling, sat down with him, and a very embarrassed James sloped into a seat, too, his hair flat over his face. Marlene McKinnon goggled at them as they walked past.</p><p>“D’you think he knows they’re curtains?” she whispered to Lily, who sighed and started on a platter of bacon without comment.</p><p>“<em>Honestly</em>,” said Io, a grin spreading over her face. A few older students were smothering laughter a little further down.</p><p>“Christmas present, Master Black?” Dumbledore asked cheerfully, as he took his seat at the head of the table. McGonagall sat beside him, a pinch in her cheeks that suggested she was trying not to smile.</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” Sirius said, grinning insanely. “My favourite, actually. James got me <em>just</em> the right thing.” James had sunk so low in his chair that only a puff of bedheaded, wild hair was visible.</p><p>“Well, do let me borrow it sometime,” said Dumbledore, buttering some toast. He popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a second. Sirius’s grin widened. “I do believe my grandmother used to paper her walls like that.” Remus and Peter burst into suppressed giggles, and from beneath the table, James gave a loud, utterly humiliated groan.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>😂 😂 </p><p>Go read <a><strong>Lion Hearts - Book 1, Golden</strong></a> by li0nheart!! It’s amazing!!</p><p> (and Gryffindor’s Girl and Ravenclaw’s Regrets by me if you feel so inclined)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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